When Kennethia Mason talks about what she wants to be when she gets older, her eyes light up.

“I have a lot of ideas,” said Mason, a seventh-grader at W. J. Christian School in Birmingham and Central Alabama Girls Inc. participant. “I’m thinking a lawyer, a professional dancer or a marine biologist” — or maybe, she added, all three.

This fall, Central Alabama Girls Inc. is expanding to reach more girls like Mason, including in Shelby County. An integral part of Central Alabama Girls Inc., which is an affiliate of National Girls Incorporated, is to teach girls to empower themselves and each other, CEO Connie Hill said.

Mason said one of her favorite parts of participating in Central Alabama Girls Inc. is when they get to act out a court case and argue for or against ideas with attorneys, prosecutors and judges. Another activity she loves at the after-school and summer camp programs — designed to teach girls to be “smart, strong and bold” — is learning step and hip hop routines. These dance routines, she said, are also where she made some of her friends.

Four years ago, Mason didn’t know what to expect when she first started going to the Girls Inc. programs at the Crestwood Center downtown, but she did know that she didn’t have a lot of experience making friends with girls.

“I used to not really talk with girls that much. I thought girls were kind of messy … but now, I got some friends,” Mason said.

Over the years, Mason said, she learned how to cooperate with others better and be more open-minded and understanding of people. Especially girls, she said, since all Central Alabama Girls Inc. programs are offered for female students only. Even her grandma, she said, likes how she interacts with girls now.

Girls Inc., formerly called the Girls Club Inc. of Birmingham, was formed in 1938 and became a United Way partner in 1954. Although it has always served the community through working with school-aged girls, the specifics of its mission have changed with the times and now focuses on inspiring girls through core programming areas such as science, math, technology, career development, English, writing, sports, arts, cultural enrichment and healthy living.

This summer, Girls Inc. of Central Alabama was awarded a $130,000 grant by the national organization to expand its in-school, after-school and summer camp programming, with several in the Shelby County for the first time. Hill said the grant was a part of a country-wide growth initiative to reach more girls.

Girls Inc. has previously served about 50 Birmingham-area schools a year, Hill added, but not with any type of sustained programming in the Shelby County area.

“What we know about the Girls Inc. program is it really does make a difference in the lives of the girls … but it needs to be sustained,” she said.

With the funding from the new two-year grant, Hill said, that will be possible.

“This is going to allow us to do programming that really meets the strong, the smart and the bold in our mission,” Hill said. “So we are going to be able to do things that will promote health and wellness, and we’ll be able to do academic enrichment programming, and we will be able to teach life skills with the same group of girls, so it will really start to have an impact in them.”

After-school program

With the grant, Girls Inc. will be doubling its impact on the number of girls it reaches, Hill said. The organization will be able to serve 25 more girls at their Crestwood Center, establish in-school clubs for about 350 girls and create three new summer camps in Shelby County and Bessemer.

In the 2018-19 school year, Girls Inc. will also start free after-school programs in Shelby County Schools at Calera Intermediate and Elvin Hills Elementary, Hill said.

“We will be part of the after-school program just like chess club or something like that, but we will offer very fun and hands-on activities that will teach girls important lessons,” Hill said.

Sixth-grader Emileigh Barbee, who has participated in the Crestwood after-school program for the past four years, said she’s always been bold, and she’s always been good at math and science.

That’s why, she said, she thinks she might want to be an electrical engineer when she grows up.

“See, I’m the type of person who likes to be adventurous and try different things,” she said, explaining that her grandma once told her a story about her aunt fixing a wire that came out of the circuit.

Central Alabama Girls Inc., a nonprofit organization that works with and inspires girls to live healthy, active lifestyles and find success in school, plans to reach more girls in Shelby County soon.

The curriculum used for these programs is research-based and designed specifically for the age group of girls being served, Hill said.

Barbee said some of her favorite parts of the programs have been experiments, such as making slime or playdough, or group activities and field trips to learn science.

“[Girls Inc.] is a place where girls can come and express their feelings and learn how to be strong and smart,” Barbee said. “That’s what I think, and I feel safe here, like I can trust people.”

Math-based careers have a gender gap and pay gap, Hill said, and they want Girls Inc. to push girls to be economically independent in the long run and not be afraid to try new skills in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields.

“What we know is that when they're in elementary school, little girls like science and math as much as little boys,” Hill said. “In those middle school years, we start to see some drifting away. If we can keep those girls thinking how fun it is — through things like edible DNA, tours to the local STEM lab at Southern Research — then when they get to high school, they are more likely to take those AP classes, the advanced version of chemistry or physics, that sets them up to be able to measure in a STEM subject in college if they want to.”

It doesn’t mean they have to go into those careers one day, Hill said, but they have that option.

“They're not sitting in calculus with people who have had calculus before and they haven’t,” she said. “They’re prepared for those kind of weed-out classes that so many professions have.”

One program currently in place, Operation SMART (Science, Math And Relevant Technology), Hill said, shows girls how to make lava lamps or “rainbow in a bottle” science experiments in addition to math games and other related activities that “engage girls and offer enrichment.”

Another mentoring program that is in place and will grow with the grant, Bold Futures, teaches girls empowerment through self-defense and violence intervention. They also do anti-bullying, anti-drug abuse and adolescent pregnancy prevention programs and workshops.

Recruiting mentors

Hill said Girls Inc. has the most volunteers in the downtown Birmingham area but would like to have more volunteers working in schools in Shelby and Walker counties as it expands in the upcoming year.

In summer 2019, Shelby County will also have its first summer camp, and the STEM fields will be a huge focus, Hill said, just like it’s been for the camps in Crestwood.

Volunteer Coordinator Bethany Reeves said she’s excited to see how they are going to be able to use volunteers with the growth grant. Volunteer opportunities, she said, include anything from administrative tasks to working with the girls at summer camps.

When she first started three years ago, she said, they didn’t have many volunteers.

“Since then, it’s really blossomed and grown,” Reeves said. “It’s really incredible to get to watch how volunteering impacts not just the girls, but also the volunteers themselves. It will be a lot of team effort at the beginning as they expand” and determine where they need volunteers the most.

What Girls Inc. of Central Alabama always needs, Reeves said, is women 18 years or older who are willing to be a mentor.

Girls Inc. alumna and SMART instructor Zaharia Anderson teaches a group of girls about chemical reactions using a baking soda and vinegar experiment. In summer 2019, Shelby County will also have its first summer camp, and STEM fields will be a huge focus.

It can be difficult to recruit mentors because of the commitment, she said. Mentors are required to volunteer at least two hours a week with the same group of three to five at-risk girls for a whole year. Mentoring takes place throughout Birmingham, including community centers, a number of Boys and Girls Clubs, schools, churches and the Crestwood and Walker County Girls Inc. centers.

“I know it can be a little daunting for individuals, but that’s something that can be really important,” she said. “It’s coming in and being a role model for the girls and getting to know them and being there to help them out with any issues that arise in their life.”

Mentors spend time with girls without a set curriculum, Reeves said, and do activities that are based on the girls’ interests.

If anyone is interested in volunteering, Reeves said they accept everyone from college students to retirees.

Other components of the new grant will include work with the Birmingham Housing Authority at Mark’s Village, a public housing community on the east side of town that will be transformed into what they are calling “the empowerment center,” Hill said, where Girls Inc. programming will be done throughout the school year and during the summer.

The first year of the grant, Hill said, will focus on expansion in the Crestwood Center in downtown Birmingham, as well as growing the number of girls in Jasper and Shelby County. In the second year, they hope to add Bessemer programming and additional schools for Girls Inc. programming.

Parents in the Shelby County area can look to sign up for the new summer camps in the spring of 2019, Hill said, and learn more information or fill out a volunteer form at girlsinccentral-al.org.